Sports

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Quotations

Sports

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up. —Muhammad Ali, quoted in New York Times

In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses. —Russell Baker, in New York Times

[See Karl Marx, under Religion.]

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game—and do it by watching first some high-school or small-town teams. —Jacques Barzun, God’s Country and Mine

Sports do not build character. They reveal it. —Haywood Hale Broun, quoted in James A. Michener’s Sports in America

Nice guys finish last. —Leo Durocher, attributed

[There is some disagreement as to whether Durocher said precisely this. He did, however, use it as the title of his 1975 autobiography.]

Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors. —Frank Gifford, quoted in Sports Illustrated

He can run, but he can’t hide. —Joe Louis, quoted in New York Herald Tribune

[Louis was commenting on his upcoming fight with Billy Conn.]

Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game. —George Mikes, How to be an Alien

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. —George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

—Ernest L. Thayer, “Casey at Bat”

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. —Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance